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Category: MEDA 101/102

Firstly, I was captivated by Alvin Lucier’s 1969 composition ‘I Am Sitting In A Room’ because it conveys the evolution of sound through a very simple repeated and controlled process. Beginning as speech, quickly degrades to unintelligible reverberation, before ending as simple tones as the feedback loop amplifies the resonances of the room.

With this I began to think about and hoped to achieve this notion of repetition and change within a visual and aesthetically pleasing field, using images differentiating from one another using techniques and actions of repetition. I was stuck for a while until realising I could apply to this to photography, ultimately long-exposure photography. The idea of light painting was aroused whereby I had shown great interest in Pablo Picasso’s light painting works (1949).

I wanted to create a piece of simplistic, tidy and original work in the form of code playing off the idea of repetition of moving shapes, varying in size, colour and ultimately creating an aesthetically pleasing vision within the sketch environment. I first imagined shapes floating in and out of the screen varying in all different factors, I found myself playing with Processing for hours until I was captured by the way a shape can be animated and brought to life, seen in many things within computational media. I implemented this notion to an ellipse where it can be seen tunnelling from the top right to the bottom left of the screen. In this, I feel that iteration and repetition are explored as the sketch is looped constantly though changing in coordinate value positioning it differently each time it was repeated that can be seen with the ‘println’ text data which can be useful in projects like video game development that use a large number of variables which also found inspiration in. I was happy with the outcome where repetition and iteration were to me traversed through randomization of colour and movement of the ellipse, I found the result mesmerizing which I aimed to achieve and hope to convey.

The first MEDA 102 tutorial required us to research how telegraphs were sent (both visual and electric). We were to devise a way to send a random message that was provided, to another group via Morse Code(or a code system that you think may work better/easier for your purpose). In doing so we prepared 2 keys, one for the coder (sender) and another for the decoder (receiver). We took turns from a considerable distance and recorded the results. We decided to use the Morse Code system and convert it into physical and visual movements and signals.

Roles were taken by each person within the group whereby we had 3 members. When sending the message one member had the worded message in hand and notified each letter that was in the sentence one at a time. Whilst doing so, another member of the group was assigned the role of reading the letter’s Morse Code combination to lastly the actual visual coder where they performed the visual movement aiding the message. Wide spread arms conveyed dashes and movements of hands closer to the torso depicted the dots.

We received the message “SOS SOS CQD CQD we are sinking fast”

The key we received gave the impression of great difficulty but after analyzing for some time we noticed that each symbol was relatively simple to convey by the coder to our group. upon researching this message, this is believed to have been a majority of the final wireless message sent from the Titanic. The circumstances in which this message from the Titanic was sent was clearly chaotic, many lives were at risk and it was up to this form of communication in codes to be carefully decoded for any chance of rescue.

Overall I agree that the group we were communicating with had a much more efficient and clearer system of visual coding, I believe this because for each letter of their coding system an individual movement was used to convey each letter of the alphabet. This differed from our system where Morse code utilises only dashes and dots resulting in a disorientated interpretation where the decoder can easily misread the content.

The most difficult part of the exercise I believe is creating a simple and effective way of visual communicating that the decoder can understand. Also, the coder should be mindful of the difficulties in decoding visual messages and make sure that the other party has whole heartily understood the symbol and then carry on in sending.

Extinction intuitively conjures up images of cute furry animals disappearing and their habitats shrinking. This tweet explores how the inevitable plays hand in hand with the familiar. This notion of extinction has great application in a variety of aspects that we as humans deal with. It can been seen that death is a part of life and extinction is the end of birth, and humanity can be seen playing God through these concepts. Elizebeth Kolbert took up the theme of the sixth mass extinction and put the topic high on the public agenda.

Ultimately she argues that extinction is the negation of both life and death, I’ve adapted this to the way humans attempt to slow down or fasten the processes that in some instances should not be controlled. I included factors such as religion, science and media to create empathy for the audience whereby our daily routines and actions are apart of this huge course of life, death and extinction.

My exploration through Adobe Premier has resulted in the emphasis on the external factors of death and extinction, our own doings in the world and how these are intricately linked together. Death will always bring sorrow but extinction is something else entirely, we may think it’s the worlds betrayal against creation, however it may be our treason with the universe.

My work has been driven by the way in which dreams capture the notion of the ‘Uncanny’ and the power that they have on an individual that are influenced by outside factors. We therefore have no authority in forming preconceived thoughts, series and sensations while asleep and I was aiming to capture the obscurity in the ways we try and maintain this. The utalisation of the dream catcher signifies the interceptions of bad dreams and the harmonic channeling of the good whereby both are compelling in this case and require a external force to preserve and/or ward-off. For Freud the source of the uncanny is tied to the idea of being robbed of one’s eyes, and I feel that this links with that of being in the state of unaware consciousness in which this illusion of dreams deprive us from fully recognizing reality from fantasy. Tweaking the settings such as aperture and shutter speed and using Photoshop only for the black & white feature I was able to hopefully capture the raw eeriness and spectral elements in which the ‘Uncanny’ is the foundation.

I have created an audio that revolves around the notion of ‘Authority’. The aim of my piece is to emphasise what authority means to me and my personal experiences. Having been brought up in a restaurant environment I feel as if my depiction of the topic is much different to any other. I aim to challenge the responder and ask the questions of what is really happening in my composition; depicting the contrast between sounds of the home cooking to commercial cooking under the super power of pressure and authority, the sound of manufactured authority defines a fine line.

I want the audience to wonder what has happened by the end of my piece, hearing such a contrast from the start with the ending. I have used peaceful sounds to convey innocence evolving into a passionless chore.